Weak Protests
by Nenalata
Summary: No elf leaves the alienage unscarred, physically or emotionally. Her memories and fears cloud her judgment just as they do her feelings towards Alistair and Zevran. But in trying to save herself pain, she eliminates the girl she used to be.


**A/N: BioWare made Dragon Age because they are cool. I made that lame summary because I am not.**

She'd never known kindness from human hands. Elves don't enjoy such luxuries, especially in the Denerim alienage. She'd compensated for her lack of power by having a smart mouth; words that could cut; false confidence with a witty quip.

So when Vaughn (_my lord, my lord, please don't_) ruined her wedding day with Nelaros (_sweet Nelaros, wonderful Nelaros, please don't_), she'd thought to use the same weapon and shield to fend him off.

It didn't work. It made him angry enough to worsen the situation.

So when she found herself in Castle Denerim with other elven women (_we told you, we said 'please don't'_), prepared to be served to Vaughn and his friends like whorish candies on platters, she had learned her lesson: hold your tongue around humans.

And when the human Duncan conscripted her to the Wardens, even when she'd have much rather search for the Dalish and Valendrian (_Duncan, Duncan, please don't_) was obviously distraught, she couldn't say anything other than "yes, sir" and didn't waste any time with her farewells.

She met Alistair at Ostagar. And what an unusual human he was, too—shy and nervous and submissive and painfully sweet and all awkward nods and corny jokes—and after the battle was over he cried, and he let her comfort him even though her instincts were screaming at her not to (_what are you doing, what are you doing, please don't_) and he told her he admired her. He said she was the one spot of beauty amidst all this darkness.

He'd called her beautiful.

And she, a weak elven girl still reeling from her months-past shattered wedding and crushed by their defeat at Ostagar and on the receiving end of newer, just-as-harsh names like _traitor_ and _king-killer_ and _liar_…she drank up his heartfelt, timid compliments like it was darkspawn blood with lyrium and she was infected with the taint. Alistair told her he loved her, and she said she felt the same way, but what is love to an alienage elf? Kinship with family? Connection with the alienage? An arranged marriage with a stranger?

Alistair loved her out of adoration. She loved him out of desperation and confusion.

She approached him in camp months later and coyly asked him to her tent, and he gasped and hesitated and (_Alistair, Alistair, please don't_) rejected her because he said he "wasn't ready" and he'd "never done this before" and even though he refused as kindly and awkwardly as only Alistair could, she felt as hurt as if he'd slapped her. And even though she smiled and said it was fine, fine, fine- because that's what she _did_, she was so _compliant _and _submissive_ just like an elf should be—it was wasn't, because her stomach didn't want its contents anymore even though she felt hollow, with nothing inside her.

Didn't he see that this was hard for her, too? Didn't he see that she really needed this?

Of course he didn't. She'd never told him of her past, never shared her opinions, never told him of funny stories of her youth or about her parents or her cousins or her favorite color or how she got her tattoo; but she listened to all his worries, concerns, horror stories, silly stories, opinions, histories. She'd gotten into bad habits, staying with Alistair—a special someone, her _lover_—out of fearing his race; what he might do to her if she displeased him.

He didn't notice it, but theirs was an unhealthy relationship.

So, wounded, but making sure her pain was oblivious to her crash-and-bash sweetie, she made her way back to the fire amidst the circle of humans and a hulking qunari.

And another elf. A perceptive elf.

There were several rogues in their little band, of course, and most rogues are perceptive enough to read emotions, but only an elf can tell when another of their kin is letting their racism-filled past swarm their mind. And Zevran was a top-ranked assassin used to reading postures and emotions, as well as an elf with an unhappy history as well, so he recognized their fearless leader's stance and what it meant.

Though she'd never told Alistair this, she'd brought Zevran along because he was an elf. A hilarious, charming, smooth, _oh-so-gorgeous_ elf, but most of all, an elf. A vulnerable elf that covered up his weaknesses with a false, shiny front, just like her. The fact that he'd tried to kill them was beside the point. She was drawn to him, and spent many a happy night sitting with him by the fire chatting about things that only elves with histories like theirs could even hope to follow and be amused by.

With him around, she lost some of her indifferent manner and said her sarcastic quips and made difficult decisions that Alistair screamed at her about when ordinarily she would've just done whatever made him happy.

Zevran helped to bring back some of herself.

So when he saw her aptly hiding her misery by the fire, he did the only thing he thought might help, and brought her to his tent. Without many words (_Zevran, Zevran, please!_) she understood that _he _understood, and in that moment of realization, she was the happiest she'd been in years.

And she started to fall in love.

Everyone knew about _them_ but Alistair, and since Zevran wasn't interested in a commitment, life seemed to go on.

Alistair approached her in camp one night, though, sweating. And when he told her he wanted to spend the night with her (_oh, no, Alistair, please don't_) she suddenly hit the earth with a bang, becoming that shy elf girl again that didn't know how to say no.

When Alistair finally realized that Zevran and his love were eying each other the same way he looked at her, he confronted her about it. "You and Zevran have become quite close," he said. She agreed, saying they were just very good friends. Alistair had heard all he wanted to know, saying with great relief that "I could never bear it if you were involved with someone else." She lied to him, telling him not to worry, because she chose him.

She snuck off to Zevran's tent while Alistair was fetching firewood one night, knowing that Zevran had slept with "spoken-for" women before. But no, Zevran refused. "I do not wish to lead Alistair on," he said with an uncharacteristically somber tone. "He is a sensitive man, raised by the Chantry. He will not take too kindly to you if he hears you are cheating on him." She wanted them both, she begged him. Zevran shook his head (_Zevran, Zevran, please don't_) and told her, "You will need to choose. If you are looking for a long-term relationship, be with Alistair. I can provide only a night's pleasure." She didn't _want_ a long-term relationship. More specifically, she didn't want one with Alistair, in which he'd never know the real her and she'd always be this boring apathetic little girl. And Zevran didn't offer just a night's pleasure—he offered days of pleasure, days spent talking or joking or sparring or debating.

Just as she was about to tell him this, she made the mistake of looking back in the direction Alistair had gone. She was his first love, and he was so full of puppy-love for her and, irrationally, she felt a little guilty for convincing him to lose his virginity with her and then leaving him…

She didn't love Alistair nearly as strongly as she cared for Zevran. But for the sake of _pity_ and _guilt_ and that annoying weak voice telling her to just do whatever made Alistair—that _human_—happy so that she wouldn't get hurt…

She told Zevran she had to stay with Alistair. Not that she wanted to, but that she had to. Zevran tried to meet her gaze to decipher what she meant by that as she rose and left for her tent, but she couldn't look at him, guilty enough to know that if she did, she'd lose her resolve and change her mind.

And life went on, because that's all it knows how to do, and even magic can't freeze time so you can look back to properly regret your decisions. It's hard to feel sorry for yourself when freeing casteless dwarves from the diamond-encrusted fist of thugs; it's hard to express remorse for your past decisions when your entire country is applauding you and looking to you for guidance; it's hard to sigh over lost loves when Alistair is looking at you like _that_ and infatuation is etched in every line of his face.

So life kept going by and going by and then it screeched to a halt as Riordan stood in front of her and Alistair, telling her that one of them needed to die in order to end the Blight.

What could she do? Alistair was here, and Riordan, and because they were both humans they wove that obedient elf spell around her, and no, she couldn't just say that she refused to sacrifice herself and so all she could do was say something vague and unimportant that no one noticed, and then Riordan offered his life but (_Riordan, stop, please don't_) if he failed then _they _would have to die.

He told them to sleep well.

Alistair strode into his room with a determined, if worried, expression, but his fellow junior warden didn't follow him. She ran to the suite granted her with a plan to hyperventilate and cry and do other unproductive things, but Morrigan was there and having a meltdown in front of Morrigan wasn't a very desirable thing to do.

She liked Morrigan a lot, but the feeling didn't seem to be mutual, so she wasn't surprised when the mage turned around and glanced at the elf in cool disdain. "You needn't frighten like a rabbit," Morrigan commented dryly. "Rabbits do not belong in the Grey Wardens, after all, and should Riordan perish and Alistair left to slay the archdemon, we would have no more Grey Wardens in all of Fereldan."

The way she worded it (_not this again, Morrigan, please don't_) left the frightened rabbit speechless. Was Morrigan listening at the keyhole to Riordan's meeting?

"My mother does not need old Wardens to teach her tricks," the witch scoffed. Then, her business became abruptly businesslike. "This is old magic. So old that I doubt Riordan knows enough to tell you that there is a way to avoid dying tomorrow…"

The elf left her discussion with Morrigan feeling elated, an emotion she did not often associate with speaking with the woman. She would live, all her hard work would not be paid off poorly, and maybe some prejudice against her people might lessen some. All she needed to do was convince Alistair to sleep with Morrigan.

And that reality dawned on her right outside Alistair's door, sucking all previous joy out from her and leaving a sense of dread. Her fist was knocking before she could change her mind and the door swung open immediately to a pajama-clad Alistair grinning at her.

"Hello, there," he greeted her cheerfully. "Come for a night of good, old-fashioned Alistair-lovin' before we march off to our probable doom?"

Morrigan is, she thought to herself (_bad brain, please don't_) but she didn't say it. She stepped inside without saying anything and looked up at him. Short, nimble elf versus big, burly human.

Alistair closed the door behind her and folded his arms when he looked at her. "You're worried about the battle," he said softly. It wasn't a question, of course.

How would he feel if they didn't have to die tomorrow? If possible, Alistair's expression (_dear Maker, Alistair, please don't_) softened even more. "With luck, Riordan will make sure that doesn't happen." But what if he fails? "There's no use dwelling on it, love. 'If you believe you can or can't, you will' or whatever you told me whenever I complained." She didn't say anything.

He smiled his goofy grin at her and stepped closer. "Now, where _positive _thinking is concerned…" She told him to try Morrigan, because Morrigan was much more interested. It shot out of her traitorous lips before she could stop it. Alistair stared at her, unsure if she was joking or if she was serious and hurtful. She tried to laugh, but it was a weak, weak, thing.

Just like her.

"Do you…" Alistair struggled for words, his face (_Alistair, Alistair, please don't_) contorted into heartbreak incarnate, "Are you saying you want to end it? End us? The night before our _battle_?"

No, no, no, wrong, wrong, wrong, she was _asking _him to sleep with Morrigan, and she said so, but it didn't seem to help. Alistair gasped something like _my love, my heart, please don't_ and her hands were fluttering as she tried to explain, like the words were in the air and floating out of reach. She tried to tell him about the magical ritual and the demon child but the details were getting mixed up and Alistair was staring, staring, staring and she finally burst out asking if he trusted her and he said no.

They were both silent, breathing heavily as they looked at each other.

She restarted, trying to explain what Morrigan had told her. About the ritual that would give Morrigan a tainted child that would absorb the archdemon's essence instead of a Grey Warden doing so, and that Alistair was a new Grey Warden and for some reason that made it work and she just didn't know, but she wanted to live. He asked questions, and she tried to answer to the best of her abilities.

"Well, I guess that's it," he said eventually, and she asked him if he'd made a decision. "No…no, I haven't," he said, getting more worked up with each word. "You're asking me to do something really difficult! You want me to _impregnate _Morrigan and have her run off with my bastard kid! And if having another Theirin bastard running around isn't enough, it'll have the soul of this _monster_ as well as being part Morrigan! It'll be a monster through and through! Ugh, I'm getting sick thinking about it!" Alistair sat down on the bed and rubbed his eyes as if to scrub away the image. She didn't say anything. What he'd said was mostly true, after all. Without warning, his head shot up and pierced her with the most guilt-inducing, most miserable look she'd ever suffered. "Why are you asking me to do this?" he begged of her, his voice nearly cracking with either anger or sadness or something else. "I know _why_, but…how can you be so calm about this? Don't you have a problem with me…_sleeping _with her?"

That was the question she had least expected, so she laughed without thinking about it. Obviously, that wasn't the best thing to do. Alistair's glare would make the Fort Drakon torturers proud. She didn't see it like that, she told him. Truth. It was something necessary. Truth. She loved him—truth, she thought—and that was all that mattered. Lie, lie, lie. But he seemed to buy it, because he straightened his shoulders and stood up. "For you, my dear, I will have creepy premarital baby-making sessions with the woman I hate most. Let's go, before I change my mind."

So she carted Alistair's reluctant self into her room where the aforementioned woman he hated most lay in wait. Morrigan seemed pleased, however, and made (_no, Morrigan, _please _don't_) a severely unhelpful comment to her baby's father before sending the baby's father's lover out the door. She caught Alistair's trapped expression as she departed, and though she felt a pang of sympathy, she felt no regret.

She wasn't ready to die just yet.

So the archdemon was slain, and Alistair and the 'Hero of Fereldan' were alive and so once again the only Grey Wardens in the country, and Anora was crowned Queen once again, and everything was just about perfect where justice and unity and safety were concerned. The coronation was more a party than a somber ceremony and she felt as if people (_go away, leave me alone, please don't_) were mobbing her, grabbing the sleeves of her fancy dress, vying for her attention in any way possible, and for the first time she was thinking that she was only an elf so they should just let her be. But they didn't, and she was allowed only a few minutes with her proud father before the crowd moved her along to the next important noble who desperately needed favor with the Queen.

The only good thing about this was that the impatient surge of mingling rich folk kept her away from Alistair the entire celebration, as he'd been trying to catch her eye the whole time. Finally she broke free of the nobles' holds and slipped into the palace hallways for breaths of much-needed fresh air.

Zevran seemed to have the same idea, too, only he'd had the right idea and brought a glass of something alcoholic in origin with him.

She pointed to the vessel frantically in between claustrophobia-induced gasps, and Zevran forked it over not without amusement, so she lifted it to her mouth greedily and drank the entire thing without a breath. The liquid stung her throat something awful and she was grimacing when she handed the empty glass back to him, but it cleared her head a little from all the buzzing, buzzing, buzzing of toady voices.

"The Hero of Fereldan accepts a glass of unknown liquid from a known Antivan Crow," Zevran commented. "They will sing about your daring and recklessness for years to come, my dear Warden."

She didn't say anything and slid down the wall to sit by his feet, burying her face in her hands. He joined her, rubbing her shoulder soothingly. "Politics are no place for a ghetto elf," she croaked. Her voice felt rusty and stuck in her throat, like she hadn't said anything at all—anything of _worth, _maybe—for the past two years.

Zevran laughed at that. "You'd be surprised at how many 'ghetto elves' are wrapped up in politics," he corrected her. "The Crows are proof enough of that. They seem to have survived, for lack of a better word."

"Then _you _take over. I'll tell everyone _you _killed the archdemon. Then you can do your smooth-talking thing and mediate noble arguments and I can sit in your room and drink cheap wine."

He was silent (_wait, don't say it, please don't_) before saying, "I don't think your darling Alistair would approve of you in _my _room stone-drunk, awaiting my arrival."

"He's not 'my darling'," she said without thinking at all. She blamed it on the drink—yes, the drink, even though she'd had maybe a few mouthfuls. Lying. She looked at her fellow elf, trying to catch his gaze. "I'm afraid."

There, she'd said it, she'd admitted it, and after _two whole years_ of really saying nothing at all it was even more frightening to hear her own voice beat sense into her by making her realize the truth; that she _didn't _love Alistair and she was a _coward_ and really, this could all have been solved months ago if she had just stopped trying to make excuses and hide.

Zevran still wasn't looking at her.

"I am thinking of going to the land of the qunari," he said after a long time. "They seem to be pleasant enough folk, and I do not think it would be wise to stay in the same place, what with the Crows still looking to serve my head on a platter."

"Oh, _no_," she whispered. "No, Zevran, _please don't_, don't leave, I can't do this by myself!" Whine, whine, whine. How pathetic she sounded. Zevran seemed to think so, too.

"Of course you can. You'll have quite a bit of our merry traveling party to aid you, as well as the Queen, if she can pull that stick out of her royal ass long enough to pay attention to you."

"What if I came with you?" Another impulsive sentence.

Now he looked at her, and it was a look of amused disbelief. "You would really come with me so quickly? What will happen (_I asked you to stop, please don't_) when you go back into that sea of humans and you tell them of your plan? When Alistair gives you his 'confused puppy' look and stammers over his words in the way that endears him to the hearts of women?"

"It won't matter."

"You are lying, my dear." And she was, but she tried to hold his stare anyway.

"But…" It was like all these pent-up truths were pouring out of her tonight. "I don't _want _to be with Alistair. I want to be with _you_."

He kept on staring. "Then you would overcome your fear and damn the consequences, wouldn't you? I cannot be around you if I must always suffer your half-made promises."

They were silent, staring each other down. She broke first, of course, and spoke to her fingers. "I am a coward."

His lips barely moved. "You are."

They sat for a few seconds more before she had to flee his company, ashamed. She smiled at the nobles in the throne room and hated herself more with each passing moment. After the festivities were finally over, and Grey Warden business was discussed, and the subject of a new Warden Commander was proposed, and when the Queen looked straight at her, she surprised everyone by volunteering. Send me away to Amaranthine, she said; adding to herself, I can't be here anymore. And Alistair tried to protest, but she held up her hand and said _please don't_, and she left for the arling as soon as she was allowed.

She would solve all her problems by running from them.

**A/N: Review, review, review! So many flaws in this I can't bear to count them all. So, please _very_ kindly leave me a review telling me what you I did well and what I should change! Help a fellow writer out!**

**AND FOR THE CREATORS' SAKE, REVIEW IF YOU'RE GOING TO FAVOURITE! I will take reviews over faves ANY day, but if you like my story enough to favourite at least tell me why. It's actually kind of insulting if you don't, so be a good person and review!**

**I'm done ranting now.  
**


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